What are you listening to?

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Another generation joined the family business:

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"Jambalaya" is one of those songs I remember from my childhood; a local station played old country songs.

In the 'Is the OSR Just D&D' thread in the roleplaying forum a couple of people have mentioned that they don't have favorite singers or bands, just songs that they like. Thinking about this, I wondered if it is in part the effect of new media.

When I was young and my musical tastes were being set, about the only way you could experience individual songs was on the radio. You could still buy 45s with a single on them, but mostly we bought and listened to albums. So that's how I tend to think about pop music: I like particular bands or albums and I often listen to a whole album, or at least as much as I have time for.

Distribution of music over the internet changed that entirely, of course. Now it's probably a lot more common to download a particular song and you can easily have your own personal eclectic playlist. In the old days, that required a mix-tape or something similar.
 
Thinking about this, I wondered if it is in part the effect of new media.
Not for me. There were very few albums that I could just listen to in total. The first album I bought was Pyromania (used at a Comics and Record shop), and I don't think I ever listened to the whole thing. I'd take the album and record the individual tracks onto cassette.




The one thing I do miss about albums is the transitions that they had from one song to another at times.

The best example that I still love was Kiss to Anotherloverholeinyourhead.




You can't even listen to the two songs anymore and get the effect since they recut it to trail off rather than mix.
 
Before I got deep into metal, I was very into Ice-T, and listening to this album again, realizing one of the reasons Black Sabbath resonated so much with me was because he sampled them a lot (that must be why when I first heard Black Sabbath or War Pigs, they instantly clicked for me):

 
Before I got deep into metal, I was very into Ice-T, and listening to this album again, realizing one of the reasons Black Sabbath resonated so much with me was because he sampled them a lot (that must be why when I first heard Black Sabbath or War Pigs, they instantly clicked for me):


Say Ice-T to me and this is where I automatically go.







The soundtrack to my old Cyberpunk 2020 games.
 

An extended version of Forgotten Vale, by Jeremy Soule

This piece was always my favorite of Skyrim's music. It plays in a section of a DLC, where you are exploring the snowclad ruins of a near extinct elven civilization. Journeying through the secluded mountain valley that has been left un touched by outsiders in thousands of years gives a certain sadness to the music. It's helped by the melancolic choir, almost as if the spirits of an effectivly extinct people are singing one last hymn before they too pass to dust like so many before them.
 
This particular song gives me vivid inspiration. I envision a vast red hellscape, set aflame with the ground so saturated by blood that it has all become mud. by charred trees a group of damned souls, their twisiting rusted armor piercing their flesh, march in a crude pike square. Held together by barbed chains. About 4 minutes in, at the climax of the song, this army of the damned collides into a Push of Pike with another formation.

For Whom The Bell Tolls, by Metallica

And then with a flash you are somewhere else.
Strapped into a medical chair with various tubes pumping chemicals into your veins and a visor that feeds you sweet lies bolted to your mummified skull.

7734, by Sabaton

Only for you to awaken, safe in your bed. But are you?

Enter Sandman, by Metallica
 
Yeah... I was about to say Ice-T, then Metal? Why not both...






Thy never quite matched those first two albums for sheet raging metal, filled with almost the same imagery as 90s hip hop. But it's good to see that Ice T hasn't let Body Count die and still has things to say about life today.
 
BTW, my favorite Ice-T lyric is

You wanna be an MC? Walk. Come back in 5 LP's and we'll talk.

ETA: the line is actually

You wanna step to me, New Jack? Walk. Come back in 5 LP's and we'll talk.

I don't remember which song or album it's from, though.

ETA: Watch the Ice Break off of the Home Invasion album from 1993.

Here's the full song. Lyrics NSFW, duh.

 
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Eight crapshooters to be my pallbearers
Let 'em be veiled down in black
I want nine men going to the graveyard, bubba
And eight men comin back


I once heard a song with these lines, and thought they were really good, but I could never track them down, largely because I mistakenly remembered them being from one of the near-infinite versions of St. James Infirmary. They're actually from Dying Crapshooter's Blues by Blind Willie McTell. Once again the old iPod on shuffle comes through for me.

 
The first time I watched this, I hated it. The second time, I still hated it. The third time, I realized I actually really like the song, I just hate how the director never keeps the fucking camera still and I hate the male singer's melodramatic hand gestures.



(I've since learned that this is a cover song, but I didn't know that when watching it).
 
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